


As Big As the Sea

by GVSpurlock



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas overkill, F/M, Gen, Rampant Domesticity, cookie delivery, unadulterated fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GVSpurlock/pseuds/GVSpurlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Charming Family Christmas: It’s been twenty-eight years, and Snow is determined to do it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Big As the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aternea](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=aternea).



> For the [Once Upon a Time Holiday Exchange](http://ouat-exchange.livejournal.com/). Song lyrics from "[Do You Hear What I Hear?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS9jwKr4QCI)" by Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne.

It was a week before Thanksgiving when Charming found a cinnamon candle wreathed in pine on the desk where Snow graded papers.

“A little early, isn’t it?” he asked, waggling it in her face while she rolled out a pie crust.

Her nose crinkled in adorable irritation, working the dough with rather more force than she had a moment ago.

“No harm in being prepared,” she replied snippily, smoothing a wisp of hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand. Charming grinned at her bad temper. Snow started pounding the crust with her rolling pin, maintaining extraordinary eye contact until the smile slipped from his face and shattered on the floor. He gulped, turned away, and found a faucet washer that needed replacing. The first chorus of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” followed him out.

 

* * *

 

Charming could smell coffee and bacon and an eggy, spicy sweetness that meant French toast. His taste buds were instantly awake and led him, shuffling, slippered, and robed to the breakfast bar. Emma was perched on the other seat, nursing a large mug of steaming coffee.

“G’mornin’, kiddo,” he rasped, gratefully accepting an equally massive mug from his glorious wife.

Emma grunted and buried herself further into the mug, scowling and wet-headed and looking both ten years younger and older than she ought. She determinedly did not meet his or Snow’s eyes, glaring at her bacon as though it had personally offended her.

“Rough night?” He tried for sympathetic, hoping he didn’t come across as accusatory or judgmental.

“Not exactly.” Her eyes darted around the room, nervous and unhappy, landing just behind his head. Charming took a big gulp of coffee to steel himself against whatever it was that put that look in his very capable daughter’s eye.

He swiveled around on the stool and it took every ounce of his not-insignificant self control not to expel the overly-large mouthful of coffee that was burning his tongue. Snow had been _busy_ , her absence at bedtime now fully explained. No surface of the apartment had escaped unscathed.

It was all white lights and silver bells and ribbons and garland and ornaments and candles and snowflakes and tiny felted snowmen and wreaths and the pièce de résistance, an enormous Douglas fir of a height with some of the enchanted trees of their homeland. The tree was bedecked in dozens of strands of tiny white fairy lights, silver garland, white snowflakes, and a glowing star at the apex.

It was all very tasteful, since Snow didn’t have a garish bone in her body, but it was overpowering. And very early. Emma’s preoccupation with the contents of her coffee mug made an abundance of sense now. Charming deliberately swallowed his coffee before turning to face his wife.

It was very clear from her expression that not a word was to be spoken about the Christmas explosion that had occurred in the wee hours between the thirtieth of November and first of December. Emma bolted for the exit, a piece of bacon between her teeth and a travel mug in one hand. She waved vaguely at her mother and slammed the door behind her. Charming decided the animal shelter probably needed his help today. The second chorus of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” wafted into the bedroom as he was tying his shoes.

 

* * *

 

Emma had taken to sleeping at the station. “I like Christmas as much as the next person,” she explained to her father when he showed up at lunchtime with hot dogs to inquire where she’d been spending her nights (still managing to sidestep accusatorial or judgmental, thank you), “but the woman’s crazy. I just can’t wake up to that every morning.”

Charming nodded and told Snow over dinner that Emma was almost certainly conducting a passionate and clandestine affair with a person whose name he was unable to determine.

Snow fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

(No she didn’t.)

She began pressuring him to convince Emma to bring whoever it was around for tea and some of the many _many_ Christmas cookies boxed up in holiday tins teetering ever closer toward the kitchen ceiling.

(Turnabout is fair play. Also, she might have gone a little overboard on the cookies. The sheer volume was starting to make her feel a little claustrophobic. There were definitely more Russian tea cakes today than there were when she baked them two days ago. She suspected Rumpelstiltskin of his usual mischief.)

Snow and Charming inspected the Leaning Tower of Cookie Tins for signs of life or magical interference. There weren’t any, other than the usual suspects of “Overenthusiastic Baking” and “Gravity.” They decided it was time to unleash some of the cookie hoard (and their own special brand of nosiness and interference) on the rest of the unsuspecting town.

“After all,” said Snow piously, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few.”

When they turned on the radio in the truck, the third chorus of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” erupted out of the too-loud speakers.

 

* * *

 

They descended on Jefferson like a plague of Christmas zombies, interrupting an awkward meal with Grace. Their reunion had been everything he had dreamed of, replete with hugs and news and declarations of optimism that could not possibly have been true. As happy as he was to have his daughter back (and he was _truly_ happy), he felt the tension of their parting like a constant itch between his shoulder blades. Wings of unhappiness, they were.

And then, there was royalty in his living room, outsized personalities filling up the dreary space. Snow White and Prince Charming, cosseting his daughter and assembling a half-dozen plates with a dozen kinds of cookie. The crusts disappeared from their luncheon sandwiches and the kettle was shrieking before Jefferson realized a tea party was in the offing. Grace dragged him upstairs and thrust his most recent millenary production at him before dashing off to dress for tea.

Jefferson changed into his best suit, sumptuous velour with a perfectly outrageous bow tie and brocade vest, adjusting the hat above his brow. If a few tears found their way down his face, _this_ mirror would never tell.

 

* * *

 

Snow and Charming slowed the truck as they drove by the mayor’s house, eyeing the deceptively neutral door.

The pile of cookies was much diminished after visiting Jiminy at his office (“These are terrific!” he’d exclaimed as he stuffed an entire ginger snap in his mouth), Red and Granny at the diner (“Good lord, woman, what _have_ you been up to?” asked Granny, while Red sneaked a chocolate thumbprint cookie), Belle at the library (“You’re too kind,” she’d said, beaming at them. “Won’t you stay for tea?” They’d had to decline owing to excessive tea consumption at the Hatters’), and Rumpelstiltskin at the pawn shop (An elegant eyebrow reached toward the sky. “You can leave them on the counter over there,” he’d murmured, indicating with his cane. They did. They left.)

Discretion being the better part of valor, they left several boxes of cookies on the front stoop, rang the door bell, and sprinted away. Henry watched the entire production with a grin from his room, Regina with the tiniest of smiles from the parlor.

 

* * *

 

On Christmas Eve, Charming and Snow and Emma and Henry sat in front of the fireplace in the midst of the Christmas Fallout. All the lights in the apartment were off, save the fairy lights on the tree and the warm, flickering light of the fire. Considering the number of fairy lights, it was actually bright enough to read by. Emma took advantage, producing a book of Christmas tabs from her battered suitcase and a glossy guitar from an equally battered guitar case.

Holding Emma close, Snow took some liberties with the final chorus of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”:

 

_Pray for peace, people everywhere!_

_Listen to what I say!_

_The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night_

_She will bring us goodness and light_

_She will bring us goodness and light._

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts from the lovely [aternea](http://aternea.livejournal.com): 
> 
> "The needs of the many outweigh the good of the one."
> 
> Jefferson and Grace have their first Christmas together in Storybrooke. Bonus points for including the tea party Jefferson never made it back to and/or flashbacking to Wonderland.
> 
> Charming family Christmas: It's been twenty-eight years, and Snow is determined to do it right.


End file.
